


知義里

by betweenforever (asukaflying)



Category: Chinese Actor RPF, EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 06:02:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8700229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asukaflying/pseuds/betweenforever
Summary: A good bowl of soup might not be the meaning of life, but it's reason enough.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [yifantasy2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/yifantasy2016) collection. 



> **Prompt:**  
> [](https://instagram.com/p/5LfWzIobhr/)  
>  Maybe it's a coffee shop or a restaurant. Or a florist. Maybe it's the future or past or non-linear. Maybe the butterfly is still dreaming.

 

 

 

 

Yifan stares at the wontons in his soup. Suspended in the nearly clear broth, they could be fish, pale koi dreaming of their golden brethren. Green drifts around them as his spoon draws ripples through the water. It’s a metal spoon; unconventional. Yifan scoops a wonton up with the shallow bowl, letting the broth drain away over the side before he lifts it to his mouth.

“A bowl of soup isn’t the meaning of life.” A voice interrupts his thoughts, the brush fabric against his bare forearm. Yifan doesn’t bother looking up; he knows who it is. He finishes chewing, swallows before he replies.

“A good bowl of soup gives life meaning,” he says. Sehun is already a few tables down, swiping the washcloth over the slightly cracked formica of the table-tops, but he stops and turns, the hand not holding the washcloth resting on a hip.

 _One, two, three. . .yup._ Sehun rolls his eyes. Yifan nods to himself, once again the victor in a private bet with himself.

“If you think that wonton soup gives life meaning then you obviously need to get out more,” he says, scoffing even as he turns to continue wiping the tables. Yifan grins at his reflection in the side of a serviette dispenser, and takes another bite.

“I have,” he says, after swallowing. “And I still think this is a good bowl of soup.”

Sehun mumbles something under his breath that sounds like “common” and Yifan ignores him.

 

Jongin doesn’t smoke, but the only time Yifan kisses him beside the cigarette vending machine in the narrow street outside the restaurant, his mouth tastes like a strange mixture of smoke and aka miso.

There’s a soft, blurry moment, lips lingering, before they both pull away and blink. Jongin crosses one arm, tucks the fingers of his left hand in the crook of his right elbow, while Yifan finds himself running his fingers through his hair. Their eyes meet and there’s a pause before they find themselves laughing, warm and awkward in the middle of the afternoon.

“That was weird,” Yifan says, glancing down at Jongin’s mouth. It’s a nice mouth, objectively speaking.

“Yeah,” Jongin says, nodding. “Let’s not do that again.” He adjusts the strap of the book bag slung over one shoulder. “No offense of course.”

“None taken,” Yifan agrees. “See you tomorrow at the library?” Jongin nods, swinging a leg up over his bicycle as he rides away, chain clacking a little.

“You guys are weird,” a voice says, coming from behind him, and Yifan glances over his shoulder to see Sehun leaning against the door frame, broom in one hand and dustpan in the other. He has a trail of flour dusting his cheek, but Yifan doesn’t say anything.

“There’s nothing wrong with trying something, only to find out you don’t like it,” Yifan says. Sehun just shrugs, disappearing back into the restaurant without saying anything. Yifan feels oddly disappointed.

 

Sehun purses his lips as he sets the cup of coffee down on the table, next to the bowl of wonton soup. Yifan smiles, and takes a sip of coffee before he fishes another wonton out of the broth, picks another cloud from the sky.

“I don’t get it,” Sehun says, lingering at the table even though there are probably dirty dishes piled in a sink somewhere. If there’s one thing Yifan has learned so far in life, it’s that there are always more dirty dishes.

“You don’t have to get it,” he says, and shrugs before taking another sip of coffee. “You just have to bring it to me when I ask.”

“It offends my palate,” Sehun retorts. “It just doesn’t work.”

“It works for me,” Yifan says. “Anyway, who likes eating jiaozi with ketchup?”

“Shut up,” Sehun says, flipping him the bird as he wipes other other hand on his apron and heads back to the kitchen.

Yifan smiles at the clouds floating his bowl, glances out the window at the sky. When Sehun emerges from the kitchen a while later to take his now empty soup bowl, he’s chewing and there’s a dot of ketchup on his bottom lip for a moment before a tongue flicks out to wipe it away.

Yifan wonders if jiaozi and ketchup taste better than smoke and aka miso.

 

He’s just jotting down ideas in his notebook, random scribblings about butterflies and dreams and blue tulips, when there’s the scratching sound of metal over tile and Sehun is plopping down into the seat across the table from him, bowl of wonton soup in his hand.

Yifan glances around the restaurant at the empty tables and quirks an eyebrow.

“You have the best view,” Sehun says, gesturing towards the window. There’s a metal ashtray on the window ledge, even though no one inside is allowed to smoke. For some reasons, Yifan thinks that it the window would feel lopsided without it.

“What do the clouds look like to you today?” he asks, eyes skimming across the sky outside before his gaze drops to count the wontons in his soup. From here, it looks like his soup is fluffy and soft.

Sehun is quiet, and when Yifan glances up, Sehun is staring at him instead of looking out the window at the sky.

“They look like clouds,” Sehun says. Yifan’s pretty sure he’s talking about something else, so he just takes another sip of coffee. Sehun is staring at his soup, the spoon still resting on the table.

“What would you do if I kissed you?” Sehun finally asks. Yifan glances up, watches Sehun bite his lip.

“Why don’t you find out?” he says, and takes another sip of coffee. Sehun grumbles, porcelain scraping formica as he lifts the handle of his spoon and scoops out a wonton.

“Ouch!” he says after a moment, fanning his mouth after the hot spoonful of broth. Yifan tries to hold in his laugh, but the sound slips out anyway.

Later, when Sehun kisses him, his mouth still feels hot even though Yifan knows it’s probably just his imagination.

 

 

 

 


End file.
